>>As a driver, I'd put my wife up against just about any man. She's an excellent driver. As a matter of fact, when we were taking a trip last February to Macon, we had a tire blow while we were in the middle lane on I-75 at 70 MPH and the road was quite busy. Her skill in getting us to the shoulder of the road probably saved both our lives.
>
>You could have used this in the discussions about quality where cars were used as an analogy.
>
>Both software/cars can show potentialy fatal faults (ok, so one only stops operation of a computer), but a well trained driver/user is able to handle the situation without it becoming a crisis. And no serious calls on car manufacturer to resolve the problem of bursting tyres (though the technology probably exists), it happens so infrequently as not to be considered worth dealing with.

In this case, we believe it was simply a bad tire. We bought a set of 4 about 3 or 4 months earlier and this was the first long (if you consider 120 miles long) trip that we had taken. We have an SUV (1999 Jeep Cherokee Sport). Given the problems Ford has had with its Explorer/Firestone combination, I did contact the manufacturer (Goodyear). When it occurred, I happen to have my digital camera with me and took pictures of the blown tire, which I offered to send to them. No reponse.

Since then, besides the return trip, my wife on three ocassions had to drive to Chattanooga and back (180+ round trips) plus, last month, up to Chicago and back (1,500+ miles) without problems. So I think it was just one bad one in the lot.